ABOUT Eos
For over 30 years the Eos Study Tours team has been designing and managing superb learning adventures for many of North America’s most prestigious institutions.
Eos can design and manage individual tours for you, providing special features that set your travel program apart. Or, we can assist you with planning and managing your entire travel program; we have built four non-profit travel programs from scratch and we have been entrusted to manage ten organizations’ complete travel programs.
Eos Study Tours was the recipient of the Best Outbound Educational Travel Specialists 2020 - North East USA by Lux Life Magazine
Eos Study Tours will support your organization by:
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Collaborating with your institution’s administrators and scholars to create fascinating trips; we have worked with over 1,000 scholars on trips to over 100 countries.
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Enhancing your identity, putting your institution’s “brand” front and center.
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Assisting in nurturing donors.
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Paying for the administration, marketing, and operating expenses of your travel program(s).
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Paying your institution commissions based on the gross revenue.
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Providing your institution with a comprehensive risk management plan.
Eos Study Tours can help you and your institution provide the highest quality educational tours for your members and alumni. Please contact us to discuss our services and tours at eos@studytours.org or call toll-free 800-856-8951.
Eos, the Greek goddess of Dawn
The prefix “eo-” has long been favored by both poets and scientists, signifying “the dawn” and “new horizons.” Scientists have used “eo-” in such words as “Eocene,” referring to the “dawn” during that geological epoch of many modern organisms, such as mammals and mollusks; and “eohippus” (a.k.a. Hyracotherium), referring to the earliest known horse. The epic poet Homer described Eos as an ethereal goddess who was “rosy-fingered” and “yellow-robed” as she rose to “bring her light to men and to immortals.”
We chose this name for our company 30 years ago to represent new horizons brought about by travel and learning.
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Staff
Todd Nielsen
Co-Founder, President & Director
Eos Study Tours Co-founder, President, and Director Todd Nielsen has been managing educational travel programs for elite institutions for more than 35 years. He works closely with organization administrators to define goals and develop strategies for engaging alumni and members through educational trips. Todd works with scholars to develop itineraries that underscore their expertise. He oversees contracts with domestic and international tour companies, risk management, itinerary development, marketing, and guest services along with other Eos team members.
Over the last 30 years, Todd has served as Travel Director for more than ten diverse institutions, responsible for all of their adult, international, educational travel programs. For 14 years, he directed the acclaimed travel program of the American Museum of Natural History. This was a program that lost money the year before he became director of AMNH Discovery Tours in 1979. Todd turned the program around by focusing upon remote destinations relevant to AMNH curators, collections and exhibitions, making it a profitable travel program that was emulated by many of the first non-profit travel programs in the USA.
Todd is a founding member of the Educational Travel Consortium (established in 1986), of which he is an Emeritus Council Advisor and where he has spoken on a wide range of issues concerning non-profit, educational travel. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Planning from Brown University. He graduated from Collegiate School (founded in 1633—the first school in North America). He attended Friends Seminary for elementary and middle school, the only Quaker school located in Manhattan. Todd has taught both at the New York Zoological Society (zoology/conservation) and the American Museum of Natural History (anthropology/archaeology). Todd has taken training programs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, and the American Museum of Natural History.
By the age of 35, Todd had planned educational trips to and personally visited all seven continents. He has visited over 70 countries, many of them multiple times. His lifelong passion has been to experience and learn rather than tick off another destination from a “bucket list.” He has worked closely with hundreds of scholars (both scientists and humanists) to ensure that each program was an engaging and enlightening trip for participants.
Patricia Dooley
Co-Founder & Business Manager
Patricia Dooley has been managing educational travel programs for elite institutions for over 35 years. She earned both her B.S. in Foreign Service and M.S. in Chinese (summa cum laude) from Georgetown University, and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. Throughout the 1980s, Patricia was responsible for the design, development, and successful administration of study tours for leading non-profit organizations across the U.S. Following many years in Washington, D.C., one year on fellowship in Taiwan and a few years in the NoHo neighborhood of Manhattan, in 1993 Patricia moved permanently to the bucolic town of Walpole, NH close to where her older siblings had put down roots.
Successfully transitioning from right brain to left brain and urban to rural she now manages all financial matters such as payments to myriad domestic and international tour suppliers, accounting of all passenger tour invoices and payments, sponsoring organization quarterly earned income and royalty payments plus the usual in-house business of taxes and insurance, bookkeeping and payroll, HR matters, etc. Patricia still loves to travel and has led and accompanied dozens of educational travel programs; she has traveled extensively worldwide, especially throughout Asia and Europe.
Brittany Walters
Guest Services Manager
Brittany Walters has been with Eos since 2010. At Eos, Brittany works closely with travelers to answers questions, takes reservations and payments, and assists in the planning-to-travel process. She has traveled extensively and often with study tour groups. Brittany earned a Bachelor’s degree in Geography and during her junior year spent a semester studying abroad (cruising around the world) on the Semester at Sea program.
Sean Delaney
Guest Services Coordinator
Sean Delaney is the newest member of the Eos team, joining in 2023 as the Guest Services Coordinator. Sean serves as a liaison between passengers and tour operators and handles all aspects of passenger reservations, from initial enrollment to tour departure. His passion for travel began as a teenager while visiting Italy and the Czech Republic. He received a degree in sociology and political science from the University of Vermont, where he spent a semester in Oaxaca, Mexico, studying cooking, farming, weaving, and plant biology. After college, Sean moved to Australia, where he worked in customer service and continued his travels in New Zealand and Southeast Asia. He returned to the U.S. to take on a variety of coordinator and management roles before joining Eos.
Lauren Cummings
Education & Program Manager
Lauren Cummings has been with Eos since 2001. At Eos, she is the primary liaison between study leaders and tour suppliers around the world, helping to prepare study leaders for their travels and to coordinate the educational programs of all land tours and voyages. Lauren has an M.A. in Classical Civilizations with a certificate in Museum Studies; and a B.A. in Anthropology, Classical Civilizations, and Sociology. She has traveled extensively worldwide, often with study tour groups. As a result, Lauren also assists with overall travel program planning, helps to refine and customize itineraries, and copyedits all marketing materials.
Laura Honey
Operations Manager
Laura Honey has been with Eos Study Tours since 2014. She works closely with all of Eos’s dozens of overseas and domestic tour suppliers, especially during the tour planning process. She works closely with the Director, copyeditor, and graphic designer to produce a print or digital brochure for every Eos tour, as well as various monthly and quarterly print and digital marketing pieces, to ensure success in launching our tour programs. She also monitors the production schedule of brochures and their associated mailing lists, and assists the Director with analyzing bookings on active programs to help determine marketing strategies. Prior to joining Eos, Laura graduated from Hallmark Institute of Photography in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, and worked for ten years as a manager overseeing five Vermont Color Photo Lab locations. She then worked for seventeen years as a Patient and Financial Coordinator and Administrative Assistant at a dental practice.
Kat Fulcher
Marketing Coordinator
Kat Fulcher joined the Eos team in 2018. At Eos, she is responsible for brochure design and pre-production, as well as marketing/coordinating the marketing of tours for all organizations. She is the webmaster for Eos and is also responsible for creating an online presence for client organizations if needed, adding tour information to the organizations’ existing websites. Kat develops email marketing campaigns for our client organizations and creates marketing strategies based on analytics with brand consistency in mind. She has a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design and has been working as a graphic/web designer and marketer for more than 20 years. Additionally, Kat brings more than 10 years of database management to the team. Prior to joining the Eos team, she worked in media.
Emily Clever
Program Coordinator
Emily Clever joined the Eos team in 2018. In her role at Eos, she works closely with educational organizations and foreign and domestic operators in creating specialized land programs. Before moving to her current position within Eos, Emily was a Guest Services Coordinator working closely with travelers before they embarked on their adventure. Emily has an M.A. in Sustainable Development and a B.S. in International Business Management. As a young child, she lived in France and Switzerland. As an adult, Emily spent two years living in a rural community in Mali as a Peace Corps volunteer, working as an Agriculture Extension Agent. She has traveled extensively across Europe and West Africa. Before joining Eos, Emily worked in social services for 11 years as a case manager for individuals and families struggling with homelessness.
Ann Burns
Administrative Assistant
Ann joined the Eos staff in early 2022 and adds her many years of experience in customer service, sales, and office management and as an administrative assistant to both the guest services and marketing teams. Ann is Eos’ first contact for all incoming calls and correspondence, and keeps the office running smoothly. Ann holds a certificate in event planning; is an avid quilter and scrap booker; and enjoys genealogy because of her fascination with old photos and their history. Ann has traveled extensively in the U.S. including her favorite places, Yellowstone and Zion National Parks and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.